Nine rabbits fell through a hole
by CreepyCoincidence
Summary: ... and only one remained. There's a new girl in Hogwarts, and she knows too much.
1. Chapter 1

The sad truth, Tom Riddle would think later, was that she had lost everything before it had even begun.

In retrospect, it had been a nice day. The sun had been setting quite wonderfully in the sky, the room had been painted several shades of golden, the sky was clear – not that he, self-proclaimed Lord of the World and Slytherin Heir had noticed any of it, of course but the setting had been wonderful for his first scene of crime. It was as if Slytherin himself had sent his clear approval. The crux of the situation was the dead body that lay in front of him, sightless, listless, and the basilisk that had already begun retreating into its hole.

The silence, that had been rather impressive for his first kill, was suddenly rent with a rather high-pitched scream that shook his world and let forth the glory of disaster.

She looked no different from any other girl in the Universe – rather, she looked a little too like them to be anything but just a girl. He would later reflect on the robes strewn haphazardly on her slight frame and the stick in her hand that looked like it didn't quite fit. Her hair was bright blonde against the sheer sheen of her skin, almost like strands of white draped around a face that had seen too much to be real, and her pale lips looked almost bloodless as she pressed upon them with forceful teeth, and as he watched, a small bead of red blood soon welled between them and was swallowed with the kind of apathy he'd seen Myrtle display before dying.

However, the knowledge glinting in her eyes and the horror spewing from her pale white throat confirmed a suspicion that had long since taken root in Tom, and that was –

_she knows._

He had no proof, no evidence, no clarity of thought to backup his plan, but to be honest, he had never needed any. It was more than enough for him to see the wide, manic eyes glowing with recognition. She shook and trembled like a leaf in the wind, and the surety of imminent death that shone in her eyes was what made Tom almost reflexively raise his wand, his lips forming words that he knew he would later repeat far too many times in his life, and for a millisecond, he wondered about the sheer green of her eyes and detachedly thought that it might try to haunt him, just like Myrtle had said she would haunt the bathroom after she had left shrieking when –

The truth of the matter was this: Everyone assumed Myrtle had seen nothing, when the truth was, she had seen all there was to see, but she loved his black hair, and bright eyes, and handsome smile a little too much to care.

The world was wrought with the kind of selfishness that needed a ruler to justify the end to the means.

When –

"_Lord Voldemort."_

And the real truth of the matter, he'd later think with a certain kind of excitement, was that he was sure she had never existed in Hogwarts before that day, or that she said the name he'd only just made last night before making his first kill, or even that perhaps she had been sent to aid in his quest, if not to hurt it.

Not that it mattered.

Lord Voldemort, you see, existed for the sake of not just existing, but for the sake of _enduring_.

**{X}**


	2. Chapter 2

"I found her on the fourth floor, Professor, I think she's in shock –,"

"Do you think she saw it… The – the murder?"

"Professor Dippet, I think she merely needs some space –,"

"For Merlin's sake, Pomfrey, do keep your mouth shut, we don't need rumors like this –,"

"Poor girl, if she did see the death… Some people never recover –."

"Where'd you say you found her, Tom, m'boy?"

She was in shock, as Dumbledore had put it bluntly, but it wasn't the kind he'd thought of. Sure, she was traumatized, scared, and a healthy amount of shocked, but there was a part of her that had simply refused to believe her surroundings at all. The colors were too bright – they hurt her eyes, and the noises were too sharp, her ears ached. In all honesty, every part of her body hurt and trembled, like the aftereffects of a blow to a head, which was what being hit by _Stupefy_ felt like, she assumed.

Nobody had suspected Tom or his story at all, not even Dumbledore, although he had briefly narrowed his blue eyes at the boy before fixing on her once more, and she cowered beneath his gaze, refusing to make eye-contact until he had sighed and let the older version of Pomfrey flutter around her like an over excitable moth that had seen the new light and was now attempting to stop her descent to becoming a butterfly.

A girl was dead, so why was _she_ being given so much importance?

"Emma… Emma?"

With a start, the newly-christened Emma realized that it was her name all along.

"Johnson?" Continued the feminine voice a little uncertainly, as if afraid of her patient having a mental disorder.

The girl looked at her with blank, unseeing eyes.

Madam Pomfrey hesitated, swallowed, and looked around for reassurance. When Dippet nodded his small head at her, she turned back to Emma with a small, vague smile playing around her mouth.

"Do you remember anything?"

And behind her head, the visage of Tom Riddle swam into view, his beautiful eyes screaming reassurance and retribution, and her eyes fell on the arm Dippet had so casually let fall upon his firm shoulders, and the girl slowly shook her head, let a single, solitary tear fall, and –

"No."

**{X}**

Emma Johnson was in Slytherin.

Having adopted the persona as her own, or rather, having it forced upon her, the new Emma frowned at the single bed that occupied the small room, and tried to ignore the terror that leeched off her in waves of fear as she froze at the doorstep, feeling uninvited and unasked, as she took in the almost obsessive obsession with the color green, the sheer number of dresses hanging from the bed, the closet, every corner of the room. The crippling lack of any paper, any textbook was telling in itself, as was the large amount of beauty products that lined her boudoir.

Emma gingerly stepped through the door, picked up the scandalously short skirt and let out a wince of pain.

"Everything is in order, I assume?"

The voice was velvety sheen, inviting in a way only Adonis himself could make it, like a call to the Aphrodite of old far sheltered in her land of Olympus. To say it was lost on Emma was an understatement. It had barely taken life, lifted from the roots of excess and distress, before drifting away like a note in a song gone flat, like cheese curdling having been left out for too long.

"Yeah," the girl muttered against her own will, trapped against the dying fire of survival, "Everything is fine."

"Fine is good," Tom Riddle murmured in response, and then took a careful step over her threshold.

Every sinew in Emma's body tightened until there was nothing left of her but a coil set to spring at the slightest provocation.

Tom took in her wide, surprised eyes and let out a small chuckle. "Don't look so surprised. We figured out the spell to access the Girl's Dorm years ago."

When nothing about Emma softened, he took another step forward, relishing in the way she almost stumbled back, crashing against the wall on her back.

"No need to look so frightened either," he continued almost politely, as if they were indulging in a riveting discussion about the weather. "I'm not going to hurt you."

With seemingly great effort, Emma shuddered against the flaky plaster, and shook her head.

"Yet."

Tom ignored her words. "I was going to kill you before, you know," he supplied softly, an almost smile playing upon his mouth. The planes of his body shifted as he pressed closer still, and Emma retreated further into the wall, as if trying to become one with it. "But then, something vastly interesting happened. You said a word – _no_," he corrected automatically, "You said two words, perhaps the only two words capable of staying my hand just then, and something shifted on the Earth's axis."

"And Emma Johnson was born."

If she was being honest, then she had suspected as much. There was no recognition in the younger Voldemort's eyes, before suddenly, there was, as if, by saying his name, she had called upon some higher power to grant her access to his world, and It had responded.

"Emma Johnson is a flighty girl, if a bit dim," With a start, the new Emma realized that Tom had started speaking again, with an almost apologetic tone, the way you talk about someone who was being spoken about nicely, but the undercurrents of dislike still remained – the way you talk about someone who is already lying within his grave, and the speaker knows that speaking ill of the dead has always been forbidden, so he tries not to, but honestly, with some people, it just can't be helped.

"She is a half-blood, though she desperately tries to hide the fact by sleeping with every pureblood available to hide the taint that mars her blood. Likely, she is tolerated only because she provides amusement to the higher-ups. Everyone needs a poster girl in a skirt shorter than what is permitted who hangs at their every word because she knows no better, wants no better."

"She smiles whenever there is fun being made at her expense, which is often, because she knows that if she rebels, she will be kicked out. Why, just last week, I remember she slept with Abraxas Malfoy when he was drunk and began pawing at her," Tom added with a sharp-toothed smile, the kind that displays daggers set across his mouth ready to hurt and maim.

"You are Emma Johnson, and yet, you are not," he concluded finally, the smile vanishing from his face abruptly. "Which leads me to conclude… What are you?"

Emma, the new Emma, thought vaguely of pretending confusion at the question, but then decided that it was really of no use. He had seen her without her masks far too early in the game. "I'm nobody," she muttered instead, listlessly wringing her hands in her shirt. "I don't even know why I'm here… I… This… _cannot_ be real."

Tom regarded her with interest. "That seems to suggest that you do not consider my world to be real at all."

He took yet another step forward.

"How… _interesting_."

Emma's fingers pressed further into the wall as her eyes moved frantically, searching for a way out.

Suddenly, Tom chuckled. "No need to be frightened. I promise I'm not going to do anything to you." He looked just like another boy then, not the monster she knew him to be. The blue in his eyes swirled as he moved further in, fingers lingering against the wall until finally, two hands came to a rest right beside her head. "You can trust me, you know," he whispered, leaning to press his lips against the shell of her ear, ignoring her wide, surprised eyes. "I know who you are. I'm the _only _one who knows who you are. I can help you," he continued, finally moving back to smile deceptively at her. "I can help you get home."

"_Get the fuck away from me!" _

He stumbled back when she pressed her hands against his chest, groaning at the way the bed hit his shin. For a second, his eyes flickered red - and the mere sight had her cowering against the wall again, brief moment of bravado disappearing. But then, just as it had appeared, it went, leaving nothing but pale blue behind.

Tom regarded her thoughtfully. "You're scared of me," he observed lightly, fingers grazing his jaw lightly. There was a light in his eyes she didn't like. A step, then two, and he was suddenly too close again. "You'd made it very clear from the beginning itself, I suppose, but to be terrified at my mere proximity? That would suggest foreknowledge of my activities, and to be very honest, I haven't done anything quite so alarming yet."

Emma's eyes narrowed at the implication. "You killed a girl."

"A girl in the grand scheme of things means nothing," he countered swiftly, casually raising a hand to rumple his hair. His teeth flashed as his lips lifted, pointed ends shining through. "I do suppose I'll find out all you know soon enough though. Then I can decide what to do with you."

She had barely inhaled sharply when…

"_Leglimens_."

**{X}**

**A/N: Hello. Thanks to everyone who saw this story and seemed to like (?) it. **

**I'm still not sure if I should continue, so some feedback would be nice. Not a threat, I swear, but like every author knows, reviews make the world go round.**


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